''There can be no room for rigidities...

SOFTENING SOCIALISM.

May 27, 1986

GEORGETOWN, GUYANA — SOFTENING SOCIALISM. ''There can be no room for rigidities that are at variance with the realities of the world.'' President Desmond Hoyte was speaking to a rally this weekend celebrating the country's 20th anniversary of independence from Great Britain. His point: After almost 20 years of cooperative socialism, Guyana is turning to local and foreign private investment to cure the nation's deep-seated economic ills. Hoyte was elected last December after the death of longtime president Forbes Burnham. Under Burnham's rule the state controlled 80 percent of the economy and Guyana became one of the Western Hemisphere's poorest nations -- with a $700 million foreign debt, which Hoyte vows to repay.